Tech Roundup: 4G

Vodafone's rollout will kick off in London, with 12 more cities slated to get LTE coverage before the end of year: Birmingham, Bradford, Coventry, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, and Sheffield.

By the end of 2015, it aims to have 'in-building' LTE coverage of 98 percent of the population.

Vodafone's cheapest 4G plan for smartphones will be a 12-month SIM-only tariff with 2GB of mobile data, priced at £26 a month. The most expensive plan comes in at £57 with 8GB of mobile data, with an LTE handset included.

Vodafone will launch its 4G network with smartphones including Nokia's Lumia 925, Samsung's Galaxy S4 and the BlackBerry Z10. There's no iPhone 5, however, as Vodafone's network uses the 800MHz spectrum, which isn't supported by the Apple device.

The company is hoping to differentiate its LTE offerings from rivals' using content packages from Sky and Spotify: depending on the package, subscribers will get Sky Sports Mobile TV or Spotify Premium included as part of their tariff for up to 12 months.

Along with mobile plans, the operator will be selling a range of data-only packages for tablets and dongles, which come without Spotify or Sky included.

SIM-only 30-day plans start at £20 for 4GB of data or £30 for 10GB. Equivalent 12-month plans with a dongle included, with an upfront cost of £9 and £29 respectively. There are also plans with other hardware on offer, including a Galaxy Tab 3 with 4GB of data for £31 a month, or for £42 with 10GB of data.

The Newbury-based operator said earlier this year that it had doubled its planned infrastructure spend for this year to £900m, although hasn't detailed how much of that will be devoted purely to the 4G rollout.